This is a online journal of a scoutmaster's thoughts on over 30 years as a Boy Scout Leader.

Archive for the ‘Scout Law’ Category

With this blog entry I would like to steer you to another Scouting blog for just a moment. Buffaloreagle at the Lone Star Scouter blog wrote an excellent post that I think you might find interesting. He called it “Last, Great, Best, Hope For America. Here is a portion of it:

“You are the last, great, best, hope for America. You are! You believe in HONOR, in a world where honor has lost much of its meaning. You believe in doing your duty to God and your Country, in a country where school prayer has been outlawed and many Americans don’t even bother to vote. You believe in a scout law, with 12 very demanding and very specific points, and you commit to ALL of them….when your non-scout friends commit to NOTHING.”

Did you know that the great American actor John Wayne was a Boy Scout in his youth? It seems that even in his adult life he never forgot his time in Scouting. In fact, even as Mr. Wayne was dying of cancer, he attended a benefit dinner to raise money for a new Scout camp. President Gerald Ford, who also attended the dinner, said of Mr. Wayne, “It occurs to me that John Wayne, like so many other great Americans, has never lost the sense that there is a higher good, something outside the individual, which each of us should seek to achieve.”

When the time came for Mr. Wayne to speak to the crowd he surprised everyone when he recited the Scout Law. Then he added, “”Trouble is, we learn them (the points of the Law) so young we sometimes don’t get all the understanding that goes with them. I take care of that in my family. As each boy reaches Scout age, I make sure he learns the Scout Law. Then I break it down for him, with a few things I have picked up in more than half a century since I learned it.” He then went on to break it down for the audience.

I am not going to print the whole thing Mr. Wayne said in this blog because you can read it at Boy Scout Trail or the USSP site. It is a great explanation about the meaning of the Scout Law so I do encourage you to check it out. I have wanted to use this a couple of times at a court of honor, but for some reason I always seem to forget to put it in my briefcase.

I am always amazed with the number of well known people who were involved with Boy Scouting in their youth, and how they fondly remember their days as a Boy Scout. I wish more people would come forward and tell the public about what Scouting has meant to them.

I decided to upload two videos to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast this weekend, after all, it is raining outside so I can not go for a bike ride. Both videos feature your favorite Scouting puppet, Buttons, the radical Boy Scout. The first shows Buttons reciting the Scout Law, the second features him talking about the Scout Motto, Be Prepared.

The video featuring the Scout Law is actually the very first video made with Buttons. (Click HERE to watch it.) It was an experiment that went fairly well. I posted it on Youtube and actually received a few positive emails about it. So I made other videos with the puppet.

The video that features Buttons talking about the Scout Motto was probably the fourth or fifth video made with the radical Boy Scout. (Click HERE to watch it.) I thought it might be interesting to hear Buttons point of view on what it means to really Be Prepared.

There are more videos of Buttons waiting for their turn to be placed on this podcast, along with a few ideas for more videos of the radical Scout. Stay tuned to see them all. Or, if you can not wait, check them out at the troop’s website.

The Boy Scout Law states that a Scout is physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. The Scout Oath states that a Scout is Clean: in body, mind, language, and environment.

So why are so many Scouts using bad language and swearing? It is not too bad in my own troop but I have seen it pretty bad in some troops. I hear Scouts swearing. I read bad language on their messages left on internet forums and on their myspace pages. I see it in the sign language they use.

I put a lot of the blame for this on the adults, the parents, and yes, even some adult Scout leaders. I firmly believe that if adults use bad language then the youth they are associated with will also use the same bad words. After all, if the youth hear it from adults then what is to stop them from using it.

During the last twenty-five years that I have been a scoutmaster I have enforced a policy of “no bad language” in the troop. When a Boy Scout swears during a troop meeting or activity he gets to do fifteen push-ups, right there and then. I have had Scouts do push-ups at meetings, on campouts, in parking lots, and various others places.

When a boy joins our troop I sit down with him and his parents and explain several things about our program, including the policy about bad language and push-ups. You know, in twenty-five years I have never had a parent complain about it.

Of course, boys will be boys, and sometimes someone will start teasing the Scout who is doing push-ups. All I have to do to stop him is to ask him if he would like to get down on the floor to join the other Scouts. That usually quiets them down quickly.

I expect all adult leaders and parents who attend activities to follow the same rules as the Scouts. They are usually happy to comply. In fact, there have been several times when a father gets to show the boys how to do push-ups after he has a slip of the tongue. Yes, I even remember there has been two times that I have done push-ups over the years.

It is truly amazing. The Scouts in our troop watch their own language doing troop activities, and they listen to everyone else’s words. They also tend to watch what they say outside of Scouting when they know I am around. It just serves as proof that if an adult refrains from using bad language, and expects the youth to do the same, that they will usually rise to the challenge.

A case in point… I was bowling with a few Scouts one Saturday afternoon. In the lane next to us was Brian, a former troop member, and a few of his teenage friends. When I heard one of his buddies swear after a bad throw I glanced over to see who said it and caught Brian’s eye. Brian immediately turned to his friends and told them they should not use language like that.

I smiled. I had not said a word to Brian and his friends about it. In fact, I had not even looked sternly at the group of friends. But Brian took it upon himself to correct his friend. He rose to the challenge.